STL Advocate

A great weekend at the FestAbility event. I came across this Optimistic October calendar from my friends at UMSL SUCCEED (OIPE) and had to share it. Happy Fall everyone!

Great event. Highly recommended.

FestAbility is hosting our 6th Disability Pride festival at the Missouri History Museum in St Louis on Saturday, October 4th.
If you would like to sponsor the event, join the walk or request a resource table, click on this link, https://forms.gle/gzryaiQ1FFCw2SCa7

Happy back to school time.
If your kids are reading below grade level or struggling to learn to read, here is a webinar you need to attend. Continue the content learning even if the reading is a struggle.

Especially for middle school and high school! Simple accomodation for any IEP or 504 plan. Let them learn the curriculum (social studies, science, electives) even if they can't independently read it themselves.

Listening with text-to-speech: Tools to support reading access. The Pacer Center is a leading resource for all thing IEP.

Welcome! You are invited to join a webinar: Listening with text-to-speech: Tools to support reading access. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email about joining the webinar. This workshop will introduce a variety of text-to-speech tools that enable users to listen to written content. Participants will see demonstrations of reading pens, mobile apps, and computer-based tools compatible with Chrome and Microsoft platforms. These technologies can benefit individuals of all...

It's not!!

Let’s be clear about something.

A van ride is not a day out.

Not for you.
Not for me.
Not for anyone.

If someone packed you into a van, drove around for a bit, maybe looped the same streets, then brought you back and called it a "day out," you'd call that insulting. You’d ask: “Where did we go? What did we do?”

And you’d be right to ask.

But too often, people with intellectual and developmental disabilities don’t get asked. They get loaded in and loaded out, and that’s supposed to be enough. It’s supposed to be stimulating, enriching, maybe even a treat. But really? It’s just movement without meaning.

A van ride isn't a choice. It isn’t a memory made. It’s transportation, and when there’s no destination, it’s just time being filled. That’s not inclusion. That’s killing time.

And people know. People know when they’re being patronized. They know when something’s being done to them instead of with them. They know when they’re being managed instead of respected.

We have to stop pretending that busy is the same as belonging.
We have to stop calling it a day out when it’s really just a loop around the block in a world that keeps them outside of it.

If we truly believe in rights, in dignity, in inclusion then we need to start asking different questions.

Not “Did they get out today?” but:
“Did they choose where to go?”
“Did they feel welcomed there?”
“Did they laugh, learn, live something?”

Because people with intellectual and developmental disabilities deserve more than motion.

They deserve meaning.
..

ID: Fionn holds a cardboard sign above his read which reads "A van ride is not a day out."